Schedule Meetings in Outlook 2011 for Macs

Overview

One of the most powerful features of Exchange Server mailboxes is the ability to easily view others' time commitments and to schedule and manage meetings.

Instructions

Scheduling a Meeting

1. To schedule a meeting with other Exchange users based on their availability, click “Meeting ” on the Home tab of the Calendar. Or choose New > Meeting on the Home tab in any other folder.
   
   
   
   
2. The “Meeting Request” window should open
   
   
3. Fill in attendees, subject of the meeting, location (if desired), start and end time, as well as the date.
   
   
4. You can set up a recurring meeting just as you would a recurring appointment, with the “Recurrence” command on the Meeting tab:
   
   
5. And, you can use the “Options” group to choose how this time will appear in the recipient's calendar (i.e. if it will leave their time free), and set when the reminder for the meeting will appear.
   
   
6. Once your options are set, type a short message (if desired)
   
   
7. Click “Send” to complete the meeting request.

Responding to a Meeting Request

1. When someone invites you to a meeting, a meeting request will arrive in your inbox and will look like the following screenshot
   
   
2. You have the option to “Accept” the request, “Decline” it, or mark your presence as “Tentative”. You can also propose a new time (if the meeting organizer has allowed it) or view your calendar (which is conveniently also previewed in the email). The Accept, Tentative, and Decline options all offer additional choices:
   
   
3. If needed, you can change your response by finding the meeting in the calendar using Control+Click and choosing a new option.
   
   

Tracking Responses

1. When you are the meeting owner and participants respond to the meeting request, you will automatically get a notification that looks like the following screenshot:
   
   
2. The information will automatically be added to the meeting entry in the calendar. To see all responses to the meeting, open the Calendar item and choose “Scheduling Assistant”:
   
   
3. In our example, you can see Paul Gettier has accepted the Invitation and the item has been updated. You will then see a list of attendees and their responses. Please note: you can click the “Response” field for each recipient and choose a response (Accepted, Declined, Tentative, or None) as appropriate. This is useful if someone responds to the request via phone or in-person.

Adding and Removing Attendees

1. To add or remove invitees, open meeting from the calendar, click the “Scheduling Assistant”, and click “Add New” button.
   
   
2. You will then be able to choose the new attendees (or remove existing attendees) and send an update:
   
   
3. You will be prompted if you want to send a message to all attendees or just the attendees that were affected:
   
   

Cancelling a Meeting

1. You will also see a “Cancel Meeting” command within the Calendar item. To cancel a meeting, open the item and click Cancel
   
   
2. This will delete the meeting from your calendar and send a cancellation message to each attendee (if desired).